I think the probability of a supernatural creator existing is very very low

On creationism

Today the theory of evolution is about as much open to doubt as the theory that the earth goes round the sun.

On the Coalition

Several ministers and ex-ministers of education that I have met, both Conservative and Labour, don’t believe in God but, to quote the philosopher Daniel Dennett, they do ‘believe in belief’

On faith schools

A depressingly large number of intelligent and educated people, having outgrown religious faith themselves, still vaguely presume without thinking about it that religious faith is somehow good for other people, good for society, good for public order, good for instilling morals, good for the common people even if we chaps don’t need it

On Islam

Every person I met [at an Islamic school] believes if there is any disagreement between the Koran and science, then the Koran wins. It's just utterly deplorable. These are now British children who are having their minds stuffed with alien rubbish.

I do feel visceral revulsion at the burka because for me it is a symbol of the oppression of women.

On the War on Terror

Bush and bin Laden are really on the same side: the side of faith and violence against the side of reason and discussion. Both have implacable faith that they are right and the other is evil. Each believes that when he dies he is going to heaven... This world would be a much better place without either of them.

On science

If you want to do evil, science provides the most powerful weapons to do evil; but equally, if you want to do good, science puts into your hands the most powerful tools to do so. The trick is to want the right things, then science will provide you with the most effective methods of achieving them.

Archbishop of Canterbury

Dr Rowan Williams

Age: 61

Job: Archbishop of Canterbury

Education: Christ's College, Cambridge; Wadham College, Oxford.

Books: include Dostoevsky: Language, Faith and Fiction, Wrestling with Angels: Conversations in Modern Theology, Silence and Honey Cakes: The Wisdom of the Desert and The Poems of Rowan Williams

Known for: liberal social views, criticisms of greed and attempting to hold the Anglican community together

On whether God exists: [After the Asian tsunami] The question, 'How can you believe in a God who permits suffering on this scale?' is therefore very much around at the moment, and it would be surprising if it weren't - indeed it would be wrong if it weren't.

On creationism

My worry is creationism can end up reducing the doctrine of creation rather than enhancing it.

The writers of the Bible, inspired as I believe they were, they were nonetheless not inspired to do 21st Century physics

On the Coalition

With remarkable speed, we are being committed to radical, long-term policies for which no one voted. At the very least, there is an understandable anxiety about what democracy means in such a context.

On faith schools

The often-forgotten fact that church schools are the main educational presence in some of our most deprived communities means that it simply can't be said that these schools somehow have a policy of sanitising or segregating.

On Islam

Nobody in their right mind would want to see in this country the kind of inhumanity that's sometimes been associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states; the extreme punishments, the attitudes to women as well... [However] there's a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law, as we already do with some other aspects of religious law.

On the War on Terror

We have only one global hegemonic power. It is not accumulating territory: it is trying to accumulate influence and control.

[After death of bin Laden] I think the killing of an unarmed man is always going to leave a very uncomfortable feeling; it doesn't look as if justice is seen to be done.

On science

The problem is with our own inability as a society to know what to do with discoveries of science. Man playing God is not a problem about science. It's a problem about our decisions about the results of science and we shouldn't be so much afraid of science as we should about our own inability to have a clear moral perspective on these matters.